03/17/2017

Previous work has shown a discomfort with humanlike robots, with people ascribing more emotions to them. In a study published by the psychologists Kurt Gray of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Daniel Wegner in 2012, participants watched a brief video of a robot’s head either from the front, where they could see its “human” face, or from behind, where they saw electrical components. The ones who watched its face rated it as more capable of feeling pain and fear, and as a result they felt more “creeped out.”